Twisted Elegance
by IrreversibleMistake-xx
Summary: Life from her nineteenth birthday has been different. A stripper, life full of drugs and pain. She never stood a chance. Until he returned. Walk with her as she learns the rules of love, withdrawal and escaping her current life. W.I.P. Check it out?
1. Under the blue UV

-1Authoress- Irreversible Mistake-xx

Title: Twisted Elegance

Rating: T

Summary-

Life from her nineteenth birthday has been different. A stripper, life full of drugs and pain . She never stood a chance. Until he returned. Walk with her as she learns the rules of love, withdrawal and escaping her current life.

**P.s., beta anyone????**

Prologue

The music began, and so she strutted into the room. It was so dimly lit, the man in the room could not possibly truly appreciate the beauty that stood before him. Skin, the colour of coffee, even and soft. Her hair was brown and fell in perfectly formed waves down her back, and swayed with each seductively with every movement. Big brown eyes; they had once been perfect, but now the beauty was destroyed by the heavy make-up that lined them. Her lips were full and pouty, the lips that feel like pillows to kiss. Her whole body was taunt and thin, and despite her line of work, her chest was small. Outside of this place she was a goddess, perfect in every way. Inside of this place, her hell, she was a whore, an item to be bought, a meaningless sex object. Her body was masked by the little clothes she wore; a skin-tight leather top, cut of directly above and below her breasts, held up by two miniscule straps. Black, lycra hot pants, barely covering her ass, and thigh-high boots. The heels were so high it hurt her ankles to dance, and sometimes tears fell from her eyes, but it the dark, no-one cared.

The music was loud, as she climbed upon the raised platform, speared by a thick metal pole. Music was in her blood, she knew the exact moments, to move, to sway, to split apart her legs and drop for the gentleman's pleasure. That was how the manager always referred to customers as, gentlemen.

'Gentleman?' she often thought 'Ha, if they were such gentlemen they wouldn't be spending their time getting drunk in strip-sex clubs,' She spun and threw her head back, swaying to the pounding rhythm. The same thoughts came to her, the thoughts that always came to her as she sold her body for a third of the profit.

'How the hell did I end up her?' and the same answer came to her 'Chad'

She was eighteen, the epitome of perfection at East High. Together for 6 months, her and Troy were happy, and still in the sickly sweet era of new love. But alcohol can taint even the most perfect girls vision. Chad's house was only small, two bedrooms and a tiny lounge room. Still more than enough to hold a small army's worth of liquor. Gabriella was too pretty, too pristine to drink, but even she could forget the cardinal rule for parties; never, ever accept a drink from someone you don't know. A single glass of spiked cola, and she was buzzed. Troy, ever the gentlemen, had been sat in the room, being hit on by half the girls, and avoided all alcohol. Gabriella walked over. As she got nearer, someone's leg flew out in a fit of dance passion, sending her tumbling into Troy's lap, letting out a tipsy giggle. Eyeing her up and down, Troy assumed she was more drunk than she was, condemning her to a bed upstairs to sleep it off.

Chad grew up in a place where alcohol was easily accessible, and tonight was no different. Lectures from Troy about scholarships often followed his bouts of drinking, but tonight, he had been fortunate enough to avoid him. Staggering upstairs to his bedroom, he found a girl lying his bed. He walked over, and in his state, didn't notice her to be the girlfriend of his best friend of seven years. He planted a sloppy kiss on her lips. Come on, he was a male, and they're was a girl lying in his bed? What would you do?

The story from here is simple. She was at a party. She got drunk. She kissed him. Troy found out and broke up with her. Her circle of perfection broken, she fell into a cycle of sleepless nights and casual sex. She took her first hit on her nineteenth birthday, the night she first slept with a man for money.

So she ended up here, having grew into her body and become the woman she was today. She left school, untrusting and alone. Her drugs the only thing keeping her alive. Each time she threw her shirt off, she earned herself a bag, and for that she was proud. The music stopped suddenly, her cue to start getting close to her 'gentleman.' Eyes narrowed in a domineering way, she walked over to them, hip swaying gently.

"Hey," she purred, her voice unnaturally low and seducing.

The guy laughed nervously. She pressed a finger to his lips and without warning, pulled the straps on her shirt, letting it fall away from the body and releasing her breast's for the viewing pleasure. She climbed atop the man, legs spread and put her hands on his face, then pulled them back, ruffling his hair. This body felt so close, so known, but they all did. All inhibitions gone with the half-joint she had before arriving, she threw her head back and yelled. No words, just noises of pleasure she knew would make him happy. Climbing off him, she knelt at his knee's and pushed his legs apart, rummaging for his zipper. He pulled back, and she looked up with the look of a small, candy-less child in her eyes. A sharp intake of his breath, as her hand, still on his zipper, felt a definite push.

"I..I don't know if I want this?" he gasped, shaking slightly.

"You're at a sex club. What were you expecting, tea and scones?" she said, sarcastically, getting up, grabbing her shirt and walking away. Her heels clicked with every step. "Whatever, I still get paid whether you want it or not."

"No wait! I meant…" The girl stopped sharply, eyes popping open. That voice. The hair she had ran her hands through. The dark blue leather wallet he'd been slipping dollar's into her shorts from. She turned slowly to face him.

"Troy?" The false lust in her voice was gone, her true, quiet voice seeping through.

"Gabriella?"

Silence.


	2. She's the same girl

She looked at him, as the room fell into a painful silence.

"Gabriella? Is that you? Really you?" He said. The UV 'mood' lighting made it hard to see anything in her room. She stood quietly for a moment, before stumbling backwards.

"No. I….I need to…I need to go now," She said, spinning on her heel and running back through the door she came in through. Gabriella slammed it behind, splaying her arms out as she sank to the sitting position with her back to everything that had just happened.

"Gabs?" A pretty brunette girl named Candice asked, on her way across the dressing room towards the club.

"Yeah. Fine." Gabriella stuttered.

The dressing room was surprisingly chic for the back of a strip club. There were twenty mirrors, ten on each opposite wall, with couches and fluffy carpets in the middle. The walls were a dark red. After the blue UV of the room she was just in, it knocked Gabriella senses a little. She walked over to her desk, sitting down to pull off her boots. Gabriella caught a glimpse of herself in her mirror. She looked a state. If you were looking at the makeup, the bone structure, her gorgeous long curls, you'd probably see the beauty that everyone else saw. That's not what she saw. Gabriella saw the dark circles under her tired, bloodshot eyes. She saw a busted lip haphazardly covered with dark red lipstick. Gathering her things together and throwing them into a carry-all, she walked out of the room, head held high. She made her way into the main bar area, hopped onto a stool, and waggled her fingers at the bartender.

"Hey 'Ella. Pineapple vodka?" He asked, grinning.

"What else Ronnie," she said, breaking a smile that felt like it was going to crack her face.

"You shouldn't drink that." The unwanted advice came from the opposite end of the bar, a gentlemen whose face was obscured by shadows. It was a low, gentle voice, a voice that set off alarms in the back off her head. She chose to ignore them.

"You've been sticking singles down girls panties all night and you're giving _me_ advice?" she sniped, grabbing her shot off the bar and necking it. Saying bye to Ronnie, she got off her stool and walked towards the door. As she passed the end of the bar, she felt a fist closed around her elbow.

"Get off me jackass!!" She shouted, too sick off dirty old patrons trying their luck with her. She swung round, ready to slap, when she realised it was him. Troy. Again.

"Gabby," He said gently, looking at her. She stared back at him, a look at pure confusion on her face. "You're allergic to pineapples."

There should be a handbook for this. 'What to do when your ex shows up at your strip club,'. The old, serious, rational part of herself was telling her that this was her high school love, the boy she'd been through so much with. She should at least stay and make awkward small talk for a while. Then again, the new, paranoid, free-willed Gabriella was telling her that they weren't together, so she had no obligations to to anything for him.

"Troy. Hey." She said, pulling his fist away from her arm and looking into his eyes. A silence fell over them both.

"Gabriella, I've missed you."

"Thanks, Troy." Thanks, Troy? That was the best she could think up? Four years and that was it? "Walk me home? We could, you know, catch up?"

"So, what's Taylor doing these days?" Gabriella asked.

"Working in a photography lab, last I heard."

"And Chad?"

"Haven't heard from him. He dropped college a while back, the coach didn't think he could keep up,"

"Ouch," Gabriella said, watching her heels tap a sharp beat as they walked along the pavement.

"It's funny, isn't it?" Troy said, his head turned up towards the stars.

"What?" She asked, looking at him.

"How this all happened. I mean, think about it. Four years ago, you and Taylor were going to be nuclear physicists', me and Chad were going to be playing pro ball by now."

"Well, from what I've heard you not far off. Some girls from work at U of A are saying your getting close to getting signed." She said, playfully bumping into him and giggling. Troy's ears flushed dark pink, his hands twitching in embarrassment.

"Thanks. But you know what I mean. Now Taylor working at Kodak, Chad's a drop out and you're well…well, you.." His eyes hit the pavement again.

"Stripping, Troy. I'm a stripper. I take my clothes off for money, okay?" For a moment, Troy was shocked by the brutal honestly of what she'd said. A moment later, he burst out laughing.

"What?!" She asked, half laughing herself.

"You've just, you've changed so much Gabby." Gabriella saw this as an opportune moment to introduce Troy to another habit she'd become prone to. Fishing around in her purse with one hand, and her pocket with the other, she pulled out a joint in her left, and a lighter in the right. Planting it in her mouth, she lit up and threw the lighter back into her shoulder bag. Inhaling deeply, she cast a sideways look at Troy, who immediately turned away.

"Oh come on Troy. You didn't honestly think I was working at that sleazy club just to make rent., did you?" She said, slightly annoyed, but mostly amused at his innocence.

"No, I suppose not." He looked at the smoke rising out of her mouth, trying to conceal the look of apprehension on his face.

"Don't give me that look, Mr Holier- than- thou, don't act like you never did it. Everyone saw you blazing on up at the beach junior year." She said, crossing her arms and giving him an amused look. His head snapped up. He looked shocked.

"Yes Troy. Everyone knew that little secret." She grinned.

"Okay, so you caught me out. I'm not the only one who got up to no good in high school. "

Even Jason could've caught the meaning behind that one.

"Do you ever wonder what would've happened? If those few days never happened?"

"If we would have stayed together, you mean?" Gabriella inquired.

"Well, yeah, but not just that. If Taylor never got with Chad, so she'd focus on her school worked. He'd put in extra time at the gym and on his homework. If we'd never gone to those parties?" He folded his arms thoughtfully. The night was chilly, so his breath formed snaking patterns that flew away from him in the air.

"Of course I do."

Of course she did. Everyday. Everyday she wondered where she would be right not if she hadn't accepted that drink. Hadn't started sleeping around. There were so many 'I wish I hadn't's in her life, she didn't know which one to feel worst about. She didn't even know which one to begin with.

"FUCK!" A sharp pain shot all the way up her leg and her ankle gave way. In her pre-occupied state, she had stepped right into a storm drain. The heel on her shoe had given way, which is to be expected when the heels in question are four and a half inches high.

"Well, it's nice to see the year of college level English language the school put you through had an effect." She giggled, hobbling to a lamp post to examine the damage. The heel was hanging on by two skimpy threads and a bare minimum of glue. Un save-able.

"Ah, great something else I have to spend decent money on."

"When there are…better things for you to spend money on?"

Once again, Troy demonstrated his complete lack of tact."Is this a very thinly veiled reference to the recreational drug use?" She said, waving the almost-done joint around in illustration.

"Maybe." He said.

"Well, all will be revealed in good time, my dear boy. For instance, after you give me a piggy back to my apartment."

He grinned at her.

"Jump on then,"

After 15 minutes of squealing, overexcited giggling and bitty conversation, they found them selves at the door to Gabriella's apartment.

"Well. I guess I'll see you….sometime, then?" He gave her a small, sad looking smile and walk back towards the stairs. Sometime? And when exactly was that? The next bachelor party he's at? The next time he wants to wallow in self pity and get drunk at a bar?

Gabriella twisted the key and bashed her weight against the door.

"You're not coming in then?" She grinned seductively.

Troy entered the apartment, and was silently taken aback at the state the place was in. The entire flat was one room, barring what must have been a tiny bathroom off to his left hand side. On his right, a kitchenette, and in front of his a living area that seemed to blend a rec room, a bedroom and coffee table covered with…well, Troy didn't even like to think about it.

"Sit down, uh, hold on," She said, scrambling over the bed to the sofa and throwing clothes, books and other miscellaneous items off the tiny, second-hand sofa and onto the bed that took up most of the floor. Troy shyly walked carefully to avoid breaking anything that may be lurking on the floor and sat on the edge of the couch. This was, to say the least, slightly uncomfortable.

Gabriella unlaced and threw off her shoes, pulled off her tight tank top and threw a baby blue t-shirt on over her bra and shorts. For the first time in what had turned into a very long evening, Gabriella looked like Gabriella. The Gabriella Troy had loved in high school. The make up, and the dark hair, and the bruises were still there, but for the first time, he saw a glimpse of his teenage sweetheart. And then, in a single, swift moment, she brought that vision tumbling down around Troy's ankles. She stepped over the back of her coach, and fell to her knee's in front of the coffee table. She dropped her head forward, her hair obscuring her face. When she looked up, her eyes were dark and distant, she was rubbing her nose violently, and old Gabriella was gone.


	3. Dance With Me

-1_A/N: My word. The chapters good, the ending not so much, but the next chapter is…different. I've tried to work some artistic themes into this story, so you might notice this one is a lot about change, and how Troy doesn't exactly adapt well to it. _

_Review PLEASE, they make me so happy. _

Gabriella looked up again. Troy stared. He wasn't stupid, he'd listened in Health Class. He knew she had taken something, he was clueless as to what, but even he could tell something was up. He was expecting giddy giggling, staggering around, a violent fit or something. Troy's eyes followed Gabriella as she stood up, swaying very slightly, made her way to the CD player, normal as anything, and turn on something that sounded vaguely like club music. Not the sleazy music that played at Gabriella's club, produced to entice men, this was something slightly softer, to dance close and slowly with your boyfriend to.

"Dance with me." She said, demanding but still somehow gentle and alluring.

"What?" He was taken aback. It was just so...normal.

"Dance. With. Me," She grinned, pointing at her own chest. She leant over the couch and pulled him up, fingers grasping something cold and smooth. Turning his hand over, she saw a small 'E', sitting atop a paw print.

"You kept your class ring?" She asked, placing his hands on her hip and swaying softly to the music.

"Yeah. I don't know. It just...sentimentality and all that." She grinned. She knew she was being completely patronising, but to see herself, almost another person to how her had been in high school, and then Troy, so innocent and sheltered that he cared enough to keep track of his class ring. Gabriella pawned hers a long time ago.

"You're cute, you know Troy. Someone should box you and sell you by the dozen." It sounded cuter when said by the voice in her head.

"I'm going to choose to take that as a compliment."

For several minutes they stood there in an extremely comfortable silence, moving to the music. She dropped her head to lay gently on his shoulder, letting him see past her newly straightened hair. She'd never done anything with her hair in high school. Troy couldn't remember it perfectly, almost straight at the top, and dropping into loose curls the longer it got. Then she cut it short and it framed her face like it was made especially for her. Troy could still remember everything about Gabriella. The way she walked, the place where her flat stoumach turned into a curvaceous hip, the way she protested Troy when his hand snaked towards her panties because she wanted to save herself for marriage. Glancing at the coffee table, he examined it with his eyes. There was several random items there, a purse, a small teddy bear with it's stuffing spilling out of its chest, a sno-globe from India. A candle. Two small plastic bags. A bottle of some kind of alcohol. A needle. The music slowed and ground to a stop. Contained in his own thoughts, he didn't even notice. She pulled away and kissed him on the chin, looking at him from under her eyelashes. She leant over the back of the couch, butt in the air, grabbed a beat up packet of cigarettes off the table and walked to the balcony. Pulling a joint, complete this time, out of it, she leant on the ledge and lit it.

"You've been doing this for a while now, I guess??" He asked gingerly.

"Well Done, Sherlock. How'd you work that out?" She said, chuckling to herself.

"I just thought when you took that...whatever you took before. I thought...something else would happen.

"That's what you get when you think too much. Look, you're obviously still stuck on High School Gabriella. Back then, it would have. Nowadays, this just makes me, you know, all together, normal."

He walked out and sat with her.

"Want a drag?" She offered him the joint, staring out at the bright blues and deep oranges of the New Mexico landscape. He laughed gingerly.

"No. I don't think so."

"Come on Troy, take a walk on the wild side." He looked at her. She was giving him alluring look. Troy wasn't sure what she was trying to allure him to: herself or the joint. "Join your book-loving, scientific decathlon winning, valedictorian ex-girlfriend for a smoke." She was grinning to herself. He leant over and took the joint out of her dark-painted fingernails.

"Peer pressure ends at High School my ass."

As a high school basketball player, during his junior and senior years he had avoided pot at parties like the plague. Typical, the one drag he had of a friends joint ended in three months of grounding and suspension from basketball for half a season. . Once again, he'd gotten completely misinformed about drugs. He had been under the impression that he'd go completely insane, and here he was, sat on Gabriella's sofa with her on his lap, munching away at a bowl of microwave popcorn. He was brought out of his hazy little bubble by strong vibrations sending tremors down his thigh. A blaring instrumental of a song called 'Push it to the limit' that came free with his phone rang out. Focusing his eyes, he read the name on the Caller ID. Chad.

"Hey, dude."

"Hey Troy. What you doing?"

"I'm..uh.." There was loud ruffling and muffled yells as Gabriella twisted in his lap and shoved a mouthful of popcorn in his mouth without warning, grinning like something demented and laughing like a maniac.

"Troy?"

"Oh, yeah, Chad. Me? Doing nothing? And you?" He said, grinning more to to himself than anybody else.

"Dude, are you O.K??" Chad asked.

"Yeah. I am more than okay."

He snapped his phone. Gabriella had turned completely and was straddling his lap, hands around his shoulders.

"So are you going to make a move on me, or will I have to do all the work again?" She was staring at him, as if expecting him to come out with some cheesy chat up line. Instead, he lunged straight for her lips. It was like a firework was going off in the back of both their heads. Three years of pent up feelings and sexual frustration embodying themselves in a kiss, so passionate it almost hurt. She pulled back.

"Well, subtlety never was really you're strong point, was it now, Wildcat,"

He smirked. No-one has called him Wildcat in long time. He was a Red Hawk nowadays. He told Gabriella as much, too.

"You'll always be Wildcat to me. Or of course the classic 'Troy-the-basketball-boy'."

"And Gabriella the Braniac."

"Which I'm putting to use. Obviously." She said, giggling and rolling of the sofa, landing on the floor laughing.

"I happen _like_ your job, Miss WildCat," He said, rolling onto the floor on top of Gabriella and grinning cheekily down her. She looked up at him. Since when was he a perv. "So am I going to get a private show, or what?"

She pushed him gently from on top of her and standing up. She took Troy's hand and led him over to her double bed, flicking the lights off as she went.

"It would have been fairer to give me a little warning about this, you know." Troy complained from the bed, sitting up on his elbows, the covers rolling down to show his exposed his chest. They were soft and silky, more expensive than something Gabriella would have been able to afford. Her father had had them sent to her, along the pass code to her Trust Fund. Sometimes she tried to convince herself they thought she was just making her way with a conventional job. Most of the time, she knew that they knew she'd as good as drained her Trust Fund and was working at a sleazy club just to make ends meet.

"Oh, shut it." She smiled. "You'll be over the worst of it by noon, I swear."

She was buzzing around the tiny kitchenette, trying to make grilled cheese with the microwave, and doing her make at the same time.

"You going to work?" Troy asked, the headache taking most of his brain activity. It took him a while to realise that very few strippers turned up to work at 11am. "Sorry. Headache,".

"Whatever Troy. I need to go and get some stuff done," she choked, gullet half full of cheese, "Feel free to stay here if you know, you like?" He swung out of the bed and felt around for his pant under the bed.

"Nah, I have to get to practise. 10 minutes ago." he said, glancing the clock on the cheap CD player and jumping out of the tall bed. He grabbed his shirt up off the floor and ran for the door. Gabriella joined him, looking flustered and tense. They both jogged down the four flights of stairs to the street. Pausing momentarily, she looked up at Troy, smiling.

"I've missed you Troy."

"I've missed you too Gabby."

And awkward silence.

"Why don't you come see me at work tonight. I'll give you a _real _show."

With that she spun on her heels and ran down the street, boots tapping a steady rhythm as she turn her body and waved goodbye to Troy.

"Gabriella. Our Gabriella, little Gabby?" Chad asked in amazement, bouncing the ball between his feet. Troy finished lacing his sneakers and joined him on the court.

"Trust me. Nowadays, she's anything but." Chad looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean, did she, you know..." He make swelling noises and accompanying them with hand gestures.

"NO, not what I meant. She's just...nothing like how she used to be."

"She changed Troy, everyone changed," He said fairly, sinking the ball swiftly though the hoop mid sentence. Troy mumbled in agreement. Pulling his shirt back on and picking his back off the floor, he jogged away. He needed to get a shower.

He was going to see Gabriella again.


End file.
